Take care of the caretaker

Care a little more, care a little less - just don't be careless.

Aug 15, 2022

Don’t like reading? Allow me to read it to you 👈

I will care less about the untamed insanity of my bedhead, shouting at me from the bathroom mirror.

I will care more about the sound of a whispered breeze, serenading light grasses and wistful trees, changing the channel of my foul mood as it breathes itself off and away. I will look to the sun’s sly wink as it dips below the horizon to accept the comfort of its promise of tomorrow. I will thank it for another day. This day. Today.

I will care less about correcting the spelling of my name, and when they call out “Janay” at the taqueria when my order is ready—which they do all the time—my delicate ego’s shellac will no longer crackle. Whether it materializes on the lips of strangers fully formed and correct is not important, for it is just a name and not me. I will waste no more of my care quotient on this.

I will care more about the intricacies of language and how it bends and flows and arcs its back to each situation, regardless of if I understand it or not. I will examine the skeletal structures of sentences, the intent of words, and the truth of your story. I will care to know what you are saying.

I will care less when I see strangers put pizza boxes in my recycling bin.

I will care more about hearts—size and shape and content in general. Yours. Mine. Theirs. How hearts swell and how a person can impact the volume of love that can be held within. Give and receive. Destroy and decimate. I will be a heart custodian, guardian, and keeper. I will run toward your exploded heart muscle and help you find a leakproof patch.

I will care less about your bad parking, skewed as it is toward the dinging of my door and the enraging of my mind. Oh, you don’t take that cart back or thank the cashier? I couldn’t care less. But I will care less.

I will care more for hope. For being hopeful. For instilling hope in others without being blind to reality. Ninny or nihilist—these can’t be the only two choices. A thimble of hope is a care carrier for the future, and without it, we become careless with our actions. Or something.

Care, care, care.

I will care less about people who write “This” and point to something someone else said, without forming an opinion of their own. I will accept their intellectually lazy shorthand. It will not bother me. Though in writing that, it seems I still care to judge them for it, so I will make a note to care less about judging people, too.

There. Care less about other people. Noted.

Oh.

Cross that out. Care MORE about other people. People in general. The state of people. The being of people. The community of people. We the people. Our general people-ness. Tenderness and care. We are all in this together. How are you today?

I will care less about crooked picture frames in hotel lobbies, people with bad takes, and awful pop music coming out of bad stereos in cars at intersections.

I will care more about finding the realness of me. Of stripping away all my carefully constructed facades to reveal my actual intent and the who of my being. The many things I hide from myself, lest they upset me. My secret life, conducted in the back of my brain where imagination resides.

I will care less about the latest thing and recognize that it’s probably just not meant for me. I am out of phase. I am old. Aging out. I will care less about my own relevance in the timeline of other people’s histories.

I will care more about the delicate thread that connects us. You and me. The buzzing of our cable as it tings and vibrates and zaps and communicates our messages. The warmth of our familial blood, or the well-stamped passport of our friendship. I will, in short, care more about us. You know who you are.

This is my Duty of Care.

I will not be negligent in it. Run toward love, be patient at stop signs, allow people to pass in front of me, offer to help someone carry their load, care to listen, listen, listen. I will take this care, wrap it in empathy and compassion, and leave it on your doorstep wordlessly and without fanfare.

I am a caregiver.

Now you.

Pick it up.

Be a caretaker.

This week’s amends…

Europe is Lost (verse 2)
I feel the cost of it pushing my body
Like I push my hands into pockets, and softly
I walk and I see it, this is all we deserve
The wrongs of our past have resurfaced
Despite all we did to vanquish the traces
My very language is tainted
With all that we stole to replace it with this
I am quiet, feeling the onset of riot
Riots are tiny though, systems are huge
Traffic keeps moving, proving there’s nothing to do
'Cause it’s big business, baby, and its smile is hideous
Top down violence, a structural viciousness
Your kids are dosed up on medical sedatives
But don’t worry bout that, man, worry 'bout terrorists
The water level's rising! The water level's rising!
The animals, the elephants, the polar bears are dying!
Stop crying, start buying, but what about the oil spill?
Shh, no one likes a party pooping spoil sport
Massacres, massacres, massacres/new shoes
Ghettoised children murdered in broad daylight
By those employed to protect them
Live porn streamed to your pre-teen's bedrooms
Glass ceiling, no headroom
Half a generation live beneath the breadline
Oh, but it's happy hour on the high street
Friday night at last lads, my treat!
All went fine till that kid got glassed in the last bar
Place went nuts, you can ask our Lou
It was madness, road ran red, pure claret
And about them immigrants? I can't stand them
Mostly, I mind my own business
They’re only coming over here to get rich, it’s a sickness
England! England! Patriotism!
And you wonder why kids want to die for religion?
It goes, work all your life for a pittance
Maybe you’ll make it to manager, pray for a raise
Cross the beige days off on your beach babe calendar
The anarchists are desperate for something to smash
Scandalous pictures of fashionable rappers
In glamorous magazines, who’s dating who?
Politico cash in an envelope
Caught sniffing lines off a prostitutes prosthetic tits
Now it's back to the house of lords with slapped wrists
They abduct kids and fuck the heads of dead pigs
But him in a hoodie with a couple of spliffs
Jail him, he’s the criminal
Jail him, he’s the criminal
It's the BoredOfItAll generation
The product of product placement and manipulation
Shoot 'em up, brutal, duty of care
Come on, new shoes, beautiful hair, bullshit!
Saccharine ballads and selfies, and selfies, and selfies
And here’s me outside the palace of ME!
Construct a self and psychosis
Meanwhile the people were dead in their droves
And, no, nobody noticed; well, some of them noticed
You could tell by the emoji they posted